


Love Me, Love Me Not

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Pawn Takes Queen [7]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorraine, in and out of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Me, Love Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is structured around the French equivalent of the ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ rhyme for playing with daisies, which translates as ‘he loves me a little, he loves me very much, he loves me passionately, he’s mad for me, he doesn’t love me at all’.

**Il m’aime...**

**...un peu...**

 

            The thing about Blade was that, however often they slept together, he never stayed; he would wait only long enough to be sure she was all right, no longer trembling with the release of adrenaline, and falling peacefully asleep, and then leave. Sometimes he went before she’d even closed her eyes, pressing a quick, hard kiss to bruised lips and then disappearing, calm and in control without even a single trace of the time he’d spent with her. Lorraine supposed she ought to feel used, but waking quietly to an empty bed after sleeping soundly for hours, she felt the exact opposite. She was getting far more out of this than Blade.

 

            She tried to break this strange relationship that wasn’t a relationship at all, assailed with guilt. Blade just laughed at her, told her he made a rule of never doing a thing he didn’t want to when off-duty, and pressed her back against her desk and wrecked her resolve to back off. She abandoned the argument permanently, and marked him to show it, with harder kisses and less careful nails. She’d never left marks on him before, for the sake of things like discretion and professionalism – but she’d left professional behind the first time he’d shoved her up against a wall and she’d dragged him in closer, hadn’t she, and as for discreet – well, they kept their secrets, but probably not for much longer.

 

            He laughed again, when they were done and she was dizzily wondering about the damage to her desk, and he’d had time to notice the bruises forming on his shoulders (nothing a t-shirt wouldn’t hide, she’d promised herself, and she’d kept her promise, but they were still reasonably impressive). “Got teeth, haven’t you?”

 

            “Yes,” she said, buttoning her half-undone blouse. “Do you mind?”

 

            Blade grinned. “Does it look like I mind?”

 

            Lorraine paused and examined him critically. “No.”

 

            He reached out and touched her jaw, carelessly intimate, and she felt it like a bolt of lightning down her spine. “You should call me Niall.”

 

            “You should call me Lorraine.”

 

            “I’ll see what I can do about that, Miss Wickes,” Blade said equably. He treated her to the same inspection she’d given him. “Go to bed. You’re tired.”

 

            Wordlessly, she indicated the desk.

 

            “I’ll fix it.” He grinned again. “I’ve been fantasising about fucking you over that desk for weeks. The least I can do is tidy it up afterwards, right?”

 

            “Cheeky,” Lorraine said without rancour.

 

            “Have it your way. Go on, Lorraine, off with you.”

 

            Hearing him use her given name came as such a shock that she went without further questioning, even though he would undoubtedly ruin her neatly organised system. But when she came back the next morning, the desk was perfectly in place, everything exactly as she liked it. Lorraine said nothing to Blade or anyone else, but she kept her smile all day, even when they had a lengthy, nerve-jangling visit from very suspicious police officers.

 

            You could never accuse Blade of lacking attention to detail.

 

**_..._ ** **beaucoup...**

 

 

            The things Lester had said to her were still rattling around in Lorraine’s head when she got back to Hilary’s flat. She responded to his bright smile of greeting and his embrace almost on automatic, pressing close against him with her eyes wide open and her face troubled.

 

            He drew back slightly. “What’s the matter? Is Lester being an idiot again?”

 

            Lorraine thought for a moment, dark eyes drifting past Hilary, resting on an inoffensive wall. _Christine Johnson_ , Lester had said. _Special measures necessary. There’s no-one else who can do it. I’ll back you to the hilt. This could mean the end of the anomaly project and the death of both our careers. Can you imagine what Christine could do with the anomalies? Proof. Someone on the inside..._

 

            She leaned against Hilary’s chest. His arms went round her, warm and comforting. He never failed to make her feel safe, but tonight there was a little jangling wire of anxiety tangling around her heart, the same wire that had twisted itself into her life when she’d worked with Niall, and she felt as if she could barely breathe. But she _was_ breathing: she could hear herself doing so. Slow, deep breaths, calm and measured.

 

            _I know you won’t lose your nerve_ , Lester had said. _I trust you to do it_ , he’d said. _There’s no-one else_ , he’d said.

 

            And her own words: _I’ll do it._

 

            She took in a gulp of air. “I suppose you could say that.”

 

            “He’ll get over himself,” Hilary said comfortingly, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

 

            Lorraine knew this wasn’t so, but let it go. Hilary couldn’t know; it would be a dangerous crack in her cover, letting anyone but Lester in on it. She might as well start holding back now.

 

 

_..._ **passionément...**

            “All ours,” Hilary said with satisfaction, letting the door bang shut behind the estate agent and jingling the new keys purposefully in his pocket.

 

            Lorraine looked around, and smiled at the sight of approximately half their possessions in boxes strewn around them. “We have a bit of a way to go before it looks like home.”

 

            “Looks aren’t everything,” Hilary pointed out, and grinned mischievously. “You know what we really ought to try out first, before we get started on anything else?”

 

            She laughed and came to him, sliding her hands into his back pockets; she had a fairly good idea of what he had in mind, and was woman enough to own that she’d been thinking much the same thing. He was slightly mussed and ruffled from carrying boxes around, a little flushed from the chill bite of the weather and the exercise. Mildly dishevelled had always been a good look on him. “Enlighten me.”

 

            “Bedroom,” Hilary said, nodding seriously.

 

            “I see. To make sure the mattress is in good condition?”

 

            “Of course. We’re going to be giving it a hell of a workout, after all.” Hilary’s lips trailed down her neck.

 

            “Mm. In that case, don’t you think we’d better actually go there?” Lorraine, contrary to her own good advice, didn’t actually move. Investigating the smooth skin of his chest under his shirt was significantly more interesting.

 

            “Well. I suppose. If you insist.”

 

            In the end, they settled for the living-room floor.

 

**_..._ ** **à la folie...**

 

            Lorraine’s phone rang, and she picked it up, glancing at the caller ID before she accepted the call. “Hil? Where are you?”

 

            Niall raised his head and caught her eye, and she ran her fingers through his short black hair, a full inch longer than usual after a few months off doing something for Chilcott that he wasn’t talking about. They’d been hoping to reunite tonight, the three of them together again, but –

 

            “ _Scotland_?” Lorraine said blankly, having caught the last salient word in a hurried and sheepish sentence. “Why Scotland?”

 

            Hilary poured forth a tale of sheep-worrying, a possible den of dire wolves thought to have been living there for at least a couple of generations, and locals who were damned if they were going to talk to a bunch of English incomers. “I’m sorry, love,” he finished with genuine regret. “I’d have called earlier, but it’s all been a bit last-minute. I could be gone two days or it could be a week, depends how long it takes us to find the little bastards.”

 

            “That’s fine,” Lorraine said. “I mean, I wish you were here, of course, but I know you couldn’t have called earlier, and... well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it?” She sighed. Niall turned his head and pressed a kiss against the side of her kneecap; she chuckled. “I’m not on my own. Niall’s here with me.”

 

            “Oh good,” Hilary said. She could hear excitement in his voice where someone else would have heard nothing more than mild interest. “He all right?”

 

            Lorraine glanced down at Niall. He seemed pretty much untouched, and grinned broadly at her and nodded, evidently having heard Hilary’s question. She smiled. “Just fine. Sitting on the floor, don’t ask me why. Do you want to talk to him?”

 

            “Yeah, pass him over.”

 

            Lorraine handed the phone down to Niall, who took it from her readily, his other hand wrapping loosely around one of her ankles and stroking the sensitive hollow behind the bone absently.

 

            “Yeah, it’s me... Fine. Boring as hell, if you must know. How’re you?...” He laughed. “Poor bastard. Your own fault for getting involved, Hil, I could’ve told you anything that required Ditzy’s talents was a bust... Yeah. Yeah.” He cast Lorraine a mischievous look. “Of course I will. All right. See you. Passing you back...”

 

            Lorraine accepted the phone back and put it to her ear. “What mischief are you two up to?”

 

            “Nothing much,” Hilary said, in wholly false angelic tones. “Hey, love, I have to go. Look after yourself, okay?”

 

            “I will. You too, all right?”

 

            “Yes. Night, Lorraine.”

 

            “Night,” Lorraine echoed, and cut the call. She let the phone slip through her fingers and fall to land on the sofa, and smiled down at Niall. “Well, that answers one question.”

 

            Niall nodded. “And here I thought the stupid bugger was just working late.”

 

            “Well, he is. In a sense.” Lorraine yawned, and Niall’s hand slid up her calf, his thumb dipping into the soft skin behind her knee.

 

            “Hil told me to look after you.”

 

            Lorraine set her book aside and slouched into the sofa, closing her eyes. “Did he?”

 

            He kissed her gently, and she opened her eyes. He had moved onto the sofa with her, kneeling over her. “Yup. Come to bed.”

           

            “Mm,” Lorraine said vaguely, shutting her eyes again and anchoring her hands on his waist. She was very tired; she’d only stayed awake because she and Niall had been waiting for Hilary, and tonight was a Friday so she could sleep in tomorrow.

 

            “Oi. Wake up.”

 

            Lorraine flinched away from a poke in the stomach, and opened her eyes crossly. “What?”

 

            Niall was staring down at her, his green eyes fixed on hers, strangely grave. “You know I would do anything for either of you? Anything you asked, anything you needed?”

 

            She looked seriously back at him, awake enough to realise an important point was being made. “Anything?”

 

            He nodded, resting his forehead against hers.

 

           “That’s a very broad-ranging promise.” She brought her hands up to rest on the sides of his head, fingers curling around his ears, palms cupping his jaw.

 

            “It’s not a promise. It’s a statement of fact.” Blade closed his eyes for a moment as her fingertips explored his face, whisper-light.

 

            “It’s madness. You know how danger-prone we are, Niall, all of us. You could be letting yourself in for anything.”

 

            “Have you ever thought I was sane?” Niall said evenly, extraordinary eyes snapping open again, daring her to lie and say yes.

 

            “Not really.” Lorraine sighed, and shoved worry into the back of her mind, shutting her eyes and relaxing into Niall’s arms. “Just take care of yourself when you’re trying to take care of us.”

 

            Niall chuckled. “That I can do, probably.” He scooped her off the sofa and into his arms suddenly; she squeaked and flung her arms around his neck, taken by surprise.

 

            “Niall!”

 

            “What?” he said, sounding entirely too amused for his own good. “Hil told me to look after you. Here I am, looking after you.”

 

            “Should you be doing this?” Lorraine demanded, hating herself for needing to say it, but the scars on his back were hellish and she knew from Levendis, that filthy-minded little amphibian of a spook, that he’d lost part of his lung. She had no idea what the structural damage was like, but she had a strong impression that Chilcott was scaling down what Niall had to do physically in the field, and if Chilcott thought it was a bad idea for him to exert himself...

 

            “My back’ll take it for a couple of minutes,” Niall said comfortably, and nuzzled his head against hers, surprising her almost as much as he had when he’d picked her up. Niall wasn’t much for little gestures of affection that weren’t about sex – or he never had been before. A new thing, evidently, and one she liked.  

 

           She snuggled against him in answer, head tucked under his chin, and he carried her through to the bedroom.

 

**...pas du tout.**

 

 

            The sun set on London, and slowly, inch by inch, the shadows grew in Lorraine Wickes’ flat. She sat in it alone and silent as the daylight leached slowly away, and the cup of unfinished coffee across the kitchen island from her grew increasingly cold, its owner gone before he’d even touched it.

 

            Lorraine Wickes was not crying; her eyes were dry and her expression neutral as she watched her still, folded hands. She was not even miserable; she felt cold, numb, detached.

 

            Hilary had walked away from her – she closed her eyes and guessed – two hours ago? Maybe three. She shifted in her seat, the most movement she’d made since the door had slammed shut behind him, and felt a sudden burst of bitterness, and a dull ache in the hollow of her chest. He’d gone, and for no good reason. He’d gone, and she could have called him back and tried again, _made_ him try again. She knew just how she could have done it, just how much of the truth she’d have had to tell him. And yet it would have been a lie, and that lie couldn’t have pieced back together even half what they were to each other.

 

            Lorraine lifted her head, and stared unseeing out of her windows. Maybe he’d never loved her, not really. Maybe she’d had her one chance at a forever kind of happiness with Niall, and lost it when she lost him.  Maybe she should stop getting so attached to people when they were so easy to lose track of.

 

            Lorraine took a breath, blinked her eyes back into focus, and stood. Hilary was a secondary problem which had just solved itself; he’d now left the picture entirely, no longer under threat from Christine Johnson after her intervention and no longer one of her emotional attachments. This kind of behaviour was no way to act when her assignment still rested on a knife-edge, and if they’d been here Niall and Chilcott would both have been bawling her out for it.

 

           She had work to do.


End file.
